Tag Archives: the west

Whenever I talk to ‘normal’ people they look blank when I say I use Ubuntu or Linux. I get “Oh no one uses that, its not mainstream” The likes of Terry Lamb insisted that no one used it. He backed down when I pointed out that his own web site did.

These comments made me think about the ignorance of most people who believe the world according to Bill and the ignorance of people in charge of large organizations, the banks, governments, et al.

I remember an experienced UNIX sysadmin guy telling me one day, how he would deal with any company who had the temerity to sack him. The retribution he proposed was severe and could bring a company to its knees if not destroy it. The modus operandi he would use I am obviously not going to mention here because IT WOULD WORK. One of the major UK banks paid me a while ago to do a security audit on all their UNIX machines and I can tell you that even they would not be immune to such an approach, even AFTER the security was tightened.

Banks, if you want to know where you are vulnerable, you know where I am. Don’t say to your shareholders and customers you were not warned!

People are very blinkered in their thinking, they can not, will not, ‘think outside the box’ For example, imagine this:

If I had a ‘magic wand’ that would stop all Linux boxes working, full stop, what would happen? “Not an awful lot” I here you say.

Well, No more Amazon, Facebook, Youtube, Ebay. The Daily Mail readers in the UK would love to see Amazon die as they don’t pay much in taxes over here. Those Daily Mail readers, however, would come to their senses when Tarquin and Amanda’s Christmas Kindles stopped being any use. They would not even be able to share books with friends because of DRM.

It gets worse. It is estimated that 80 – 90% of the Web runs on Linux. No more email, no more e-commerce, ie no shopping online, no online banking and if that sysamin guy got employed by a bank, no more banking.

Governments are spending Billions defending the outsides of their systems and not looking inwards to what might be happening there. They are spending all their time looking to the East and ignoring the West

If you are happy losing all of this, ignore what I am saying. Each to their own. You can always move to Pennsylvania and join the Amish.

If you don’t want to go back to those days then share this post with your friends, family, colleagues and don’t tell any terrorists. They will only get ideas. Unless they are already ‘thinking outside the box’ or have that ‘magic wand’ and are waiting to use it.